Carruth was a first-round draft pick in the 1997 NFL Draft, taken by the Carolina Panthers with the 27th overall selection. He signed a four-year, $3.7 million deal that included a $1.3 million signing bonus. Carruth had a respectable rookie season in 1997 and started 14 games. Wearing uniform number 89, he caught 44 passes for 545 yards and four touchdown passes, tied for first among rookie receivers. He was named to the all-rookie team at wide receiver. He broke his right foot in the opening game of 1998, and did not catch another pass that season due to the injury. He ended the year with four catches for 59 yards. He played in the first six games of the 1999 season, with 14 catches for 200 yards.
Personal life
During Carruth's sophomore year at Colorado, his girlfriend, Michelle Wright, gave birth to their son Raelondo. Wright sued him for child support, and Wright later testified that Carruth agreed to pay $2,700 in child support, half of what he was ordered to pay by a judge, and she had accepted on condition that he be a better father, but that it was something he failed to do.
Crimes
On November 16, 1999, near Carruth's home in Charlotte, North Carolina, Cherica Adams, a real estate agent he had been casually dating, was shot four times by Van Brett Watkins Sr., a night club manager and an associate of Carruth. Adams managed to call 911, and said that Carruth had stopped his vehicle in front of hers, and that another vehicle drove alongside and its passenger had shot her. Carruth then drove away from the scene. Adams was eight months pregnant with Carruth's child at the time. Soon after her admission to the hospital, she fell into a coma. Doctors delivered the baby via emergency caesarean section. Carruth went to the police and posted $3 million bail, on condition that if either Adams or the infant died, he would turn himself in. Adams died on December 14, 1999. The baby, named Chancellor Lee Adams, survived, but suffered permanent brain damage and cerebral palsy as a result of being without oxygen for 70 minutes before he was born. Carruth quickly fled after Adams' death, but was captured on December 15 in West Tennessee, found hiding in the trunk of a car outside a motel in Parkers Crossroads. The trunk also contained $3,900 cash, bottles of his urine, extra clothes, candy bars, and a cell phone. The Panthers waived him on December 16, citing a morals clause in his contract, and the NFL suspended him indefinitely on December 17. At trial, prosecutors contended that Carruth hired Watkins and others to murder Adams because of her refusal to abort their unborn child. Carruth's lawyer David Rudolf claimed that Carruth had been caught up in a drug deal gone bad. They claimed that on the night of the shooting, after Carruth had refused to fund the drug deal, Watkins shot Adams in a sudden rage when she "flipped him off" after he had attempted to ask her about Carruth's whereabouts. Carruth was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, shooting into an occupied vehicle, and using an instrument to destroy an unborn child. He was found not guilty of first-degree murder, and was spared the death penalty. He was sentenced to 18 to 24 years in prison. Carruth sent a letter in 2018 apologizing to Saundra Adams, the mother of Cherica Adams, via WBTV in Charlotte, North Carolina, for accusing her of lying about him in interviews for years.
